Half Past
by awesomesen
Summary: Kamui and Sorata have a conversation. Set between X18 and 19.


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x x x

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It wasn't even light when Kamui woke up, but he'd had a hunch, a feeling, a _something_, and had woken from it at just past four, dressed and headed downstairs just in time to see Sorata leave. Try to, anyway, but he paused when he saw Kamui come down the stairs. He'd only been back from the hospital two days.

Kamui didn't say anything and Sorata didn't move, one hand frozen on the doorknob. "I... I'm pretty sure I know where Arashi is. Now." He was apologetic.

He still didn't move, even though Kamui took a good minute, a long minute in the silence and dark of the house. "Yuzuriha says that you're calling her by her name 'cause you two slept together," he remarked at last, making conversation but also annoyed—no, angry, getting there, letting it well, and he wants to make Sorata uncomfortable or guilty. He already is guilty, Kamui knows, but he thinks—hopes—that if he can get it worse than Sorata won't do what he's going to, what they both guess he's planning on doing, because he'll feel too bad to.

It's dark, but somehow Kamui can see clearly, see Sorata nod his head once—jerk it down and then back. "Hinoto's got her."

"Then we'll go get her in the morning. Don't do anything stupid."

It is Sorata who is quiet now, forever, and it's scary because Kamui has never, ever known him to shut up and it's scary for more reasons than that; he doesn't know but he does, and—"Look. Kamui. I..." Sorata moves as though to turn around and face him but changes his mind halfway, talks to the door instead. "When I was younger, they told me—back in Kouya—that I—"

"I don't want to hear it." Even Kamui is surprised at how calm and cold he sounds; he isn't either thing, he is churning and his stomach's hot and he feels like stamping his feet and throwing a tantrum. "I don't give a fuck."

"_Kamui_," Sorata says, sounding almost frustrated, finally turning. "I'm sorry. You have no idea how—"

"_Shut up_!" They are both talking low, Yuzuriha is upstairs sleeping, and it never feels right to scream at half-four in the morning. "Tomorrow, okay? We'll go—"

"—I can't—!"

"_You fucking can!_" And Kamui does stamp his foot, not thinking about it. "Yeah you feel bad your girlfriend ran off but it won't hurt her to wait a few hours and it won't help her to charge off alone!"

Sorata moves his hand in a cutting gesture, looking aggravated but on top of that upset, so upset that Kamui can't look directly at him anymore, his shoulder is the closest Kamui can go. "Hinoto's got her, there's a spell. The longer these things go the stronger they get, I should have figured to look earlier but I didn't think Arashi would—"

_"I don't care!_" Kamui stomps forward and cuts off the urge to punch Sorata. "And what if you die, huh? What if some shit happens because you're being an idiot and you get yourself or Arashi killed?"

"She'll be—"

"—Shut up! You're not allowed to talk!" Kamui copies Sorata's cutting gesture.

"It has nothing to do with you!" Kamui has heard Sorata angry once before in the time he has known him, and this is worse because it isn't directed towards an enemy. "I'm _sorry_, I don't like this any more than you, but—"

"_—I don't want anyone else to run off and die!_"

And that hadn't been what Kamui wanted to say but it was too late to do anything for it, the words stretch out between them both until Sorata looks down and away. "I'm sorry."

"Tomorrow—"

"I can't wait that long." Sorata's voice is small, now, apologetic—he is guilty indeed, but he isn't backing down, either, and Kamui realizes desperately that he's lost.

"—Then I'll come with you now."

"You can't." Kamui knows it, too. Something is coming, something big, bigger than this; they all feel it, all have been nervous and tense, none of them wanting to lay out and say their hunches, that the end is coming, or here.

"Then—"

"I can't promise anything," Sorata says quickly, guessing what Kamui's condition would have been. "I wish I could. I... fucking... wish I could," he says, swearing for the first time Kamui has ever heard him, and he might have laughed at the strangeness at any other time. Sorata swings his face up and they stare at one another for a few seconds or minutes or hours; then Sorata turns and opens the door and Kamui, frozen, lets him.

Kamui mumbles to his feet long after Sorata is gone: "Even so."

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x x x

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End file.
